


September

by ottermo



Series: Fandot Creativity [1]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Fandot Creativity, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just dumping my fills for the Fandot Creativity night prompts here.<br/>So far - Martin and Arthur discuss babies and fire, the cabin smells of fish, magic beans are misused, Arthur cares not for water safety, and Gordon is an idiot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Candle

**Author's Note:**

> This is (or was, for those of you reading in The Future) my first ever FCN and wow, so much fun! Here are my meagre offerings :3 
> 
> This first one is set in the same universe as my eternally-unfinished fic Ankavandra, where Martin and Theresa have a baby and Arthur takes his role as Royal God-Brother very seriously.

“Honestly, Arthur, it’s a lovely idea, and a lovely…” Martin waved his fingers vaguely in the general direction of the bowl.

“Cake.”

“Oh, good. That was going to be my guess. Anyway, as I was saying, it’s a lovely cake… but you know the baby won’t be able to have any, don’t you?”

“Not even a little bit?” the Royal God-Brother of Liechtenstein asked innocently.

“She’s only one month old, Arthur.”

“I know! That’s why there’s only one candle!”

“Which brings me on to my next point,” Martin continued, “Candles aren’t really very safe around babies.”

“It’s just a tiny little one…”

“Well, leave it in then, but don’t light it. She’s too little to be able to blow it out, anyway.”

Arthur conceded. “Do you think she’ll mind if I make the wish for her?”

“Probably not.”

“Brilliant.” Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, and mouthed some words very deliberately. “Done!”

Martin regarded him suspiciously. “Was that ‘please can OJS move to Liechtenstein’ again?”

Arthur’s expression was one of wide-eyed innocence. “I can’t tell you what it was. That’s the law.”

Martin nodded in understanding. “Naturally.”


	2. Fish!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sort of an episode tag for Boston!

“Arthur, what have you done?”

His eyebrows shot up in defence. “Nothing! Why?”

Carolyn narrowed her eyes, sniffing the air. “Can’t you smell that? What are you cooking in there?” She glanced over her steward’s shoulder, towards the galley.

“I’m not cooking anything. I’ve got cottage pies to warm up, but I haven’t even opened them yet. And cottage pies aren’t meant to smell like this, are they?”

“No. No, indeed they are not. I don’t think anything on God’s good earth was ever meant to smell like this.”

“Then again, they don’t smell of cottage, either, so–”

“Concentrate, Arthur. Look, the passengers are complaining already and I don’t have anything to tell them. Go and ask Douglas and Martin if they know what the smell is.” 

“Okay!”

Fish, Carolyn thought, wrinkling her nose as Arthur disappeared in the direction of the flight deck. Pungent, decomposing fish. 

She had no idea what nefarious deed on Douglas’s part could have led to this assault on the senses, but there must surely be some explanation. 

In the flight deck, Douglas and Martin gave Arthur matching bemused looks. “Nothing to do with us,” Martin said, sounding a little panicked. Arthur gave him a smile. He hadn’t been with them long and wasn’t really used to the sort of funny things that went wrong on GERTI yet. 

“Ought I to investigate, Arthur?” Douglas offered, hiding his curiosity in a surface reluctance. 

He followed Arthur back into the cabin, and stood for a moment, sniffing. 

“Goodness, yes. Definitely fish.”

“But where is it coming from?” 

Douglas frowned some more, and then moved back and forth in the small space. He reached for the tannoy button. “Martin,” he said cheerily, “Would you mind just turning the middle no-smoking sign off for a moment?”

Martin’s voice came back, slightly tinny from the little speaker. “Off? But I’ve only just turned them on.”

“I know, I know. Leave the other two on, and we’ll be safe from the deadly fire of the opportunist smokers. It’s just a hunch.”

The middle light snapped off with a slight crackling sound.

Seconds later, the air began to smell a little less repulsive. 

“Wow!” Arthur exclaimed. “That’s amazing! We’ve got our own fish smell machine!”

“Quite,” Douglas mused, and patted the inner wall. “Oh, GERTI. Whatever will we do with you.”


	3. Oh no, you've found my secret stash of...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it was only a matter of time before I turned to poetry...apologies, this is nonsense and yet the one I like the most so far.

“Douglas,” quoth the Captain, “I’ve a question I must ask.”  
His suave companion turned to him, his face a playful mask.  
“Oh yes?” he said, “What is it, then? Don’t keep me in suspense.”  
The gallant captain seemed to be concerned and rather tense.  
“Have you been smuggling again?” The words came in a rush.  
And Douglas put his finger on his lips, “Now Martin, hush.”  
Don’t say a word like that aloud….but what, pray, do you mean?  
For though I’ve dabbled in the past, of late I haven’t been.”  
Then Martin gave a heavy sigh. “It’s just…I found all these…”  
He opened up his hand and watched his colleague’s smile freeze.  
“Oh no,” said Douglas, bashfully, “You’ve found my secret stash  
of poem-causing magic beans. For that’s why, in a flash,  
Our lives have started rhyming and our dialogue is strange.”  
Martin gaped. “You’re right! I knew there’d been some kind of change.  
But can’t you put it back again? It’s something like a curse,  
I can’t address the passengers in silly rhyming verse!”  
“Don’t worry, it will soon wear off,” said Douglas with a smirk.   
“I’m waiting, though, for Carolyn to sonnet-speak to Herc.”


	4. Towel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lowkey Skipthur ahead! First time for everything, I s'pose...

He was still shivering. Martin left his side for a few moments, then reappeared with a clean towel. The first one was so wet now that it surely wasn’t doing Arthur any good. 

“Th-th-thanks, Skip!”

Martin sat down again, and fiddled with the settings on the little fan heater he’d dragged into the portacabin. “You’re welcome. You’re lucky I had my flightbag with me, otherwise you’d have had to make do with an oil cloth from the engineers’ bay.”

Arthur nodded, which, combined with his shivering, was equal parts funny and adorable, but Martin was too focused on whether or not he was dealing with a case of hypothermia. 

“For the record, Arthur, there is nothing, nothing, so valuable that I’d rather you drowned than lose it.” 

Arthur looked up at him, confused. “But I didn’t d-drown, though! I can swim.”

It was true, Martin’s initial fear on seeing him go under had been unfounded. That didn’t mean he hadn’t panicked until the second he saw Arthur’s head break the surface of the water again. “I know. But for reference. It’s not safe to go jumping into any old body of water, you know.”

“Why do they call it a ‘body’ of water? Water doesn’t have a body. It doesn’t even have eyes.”

“Why does– never mind that, Arthur, the point is, you can’t just assume that every lake or pond or pool is safe to just dive into.”

“Even if–”

“Even if I drop my signet ring.” Martin held up a hand, the ring safely back in place, none the worse after its adventure and subsequent rescue. He had no idea how Arthur had managed to find it. He must have been watching the exact point in the water where it had fallen. 

He watched as Arthur shuffled around underneath the new towel.

“But thank you, again. That was…well, brilliant.”

Arthur beamed, teeth still chattering.


	5. But I wanted THAT one!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gordon again. Why does he always appear sooner or later?

"Well, you can’t have it, so keep moving.” 

Carolyn curls her hands into fists, furious, as Gordon yanks their son away from the shop window. “Gordon, don’t take it out on him. That isn’t fair.”

He growls something back at her, and continues to ignore Arthur’s protestations, which die down as they get further away from the toyshop. Carolyn quickens her pace to walk beside rather than behind them, and takes Arthur’s other hand. Let passers-by believe them to be a perfect unit. Arthur looks up at her, pleading. She squeezes his hand. 

“We’ll get you another car, Arthur.”

“Oh, but I wanted _that_ one!” 

She wills him to drop the subject. “We’ll find one just as brilliant. Look, we’re nearly at the library.” 

Gordon has lost business, she knows that. He’s not used to being aware of money, of having to be careful. But there’s really no reason to deny their five-year-old so much as a look in the shop windows. 

Once he’s noticed she’s taken charge of Arthur, Gordon releases his hold on their son’s hand, and stalks ahead of them. 

Arthur, distracted at least by the thought of the library, begins to chatter about storybooks. But she spots him throwing one last longing glance over his shoulder before they turn the corner. 

It is a good thing, she thinks three days later, shopping bag in hand, that Gordon pays so little attention to Arthur’s toys.

He will not notice the yellow model car that slips in among the stacks of toy aeroplanes. He will not remember saying ‘no’. 

Carolyn, on the other hand, will remember Arthur’s delighted smile for a long time. 


End file.
